


everybody hurts sometimes

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Meet Cutes [11]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, mentions of trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27435898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Maddie knows how intensely personal therapy can be, which is why it's probably not the best place to meet her brother's friend.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Meet Cutes [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927492
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	everybody hurts sometimes

Maddie had known exactly who he was from the second she had laid eyes on him, her eyes immediately moving to the pink scar in the middle of his forehead. There was absolutely no mistaking who he was, even more so when his eyes met hers and she sees just a flash of recognition before it looks as though he’s going to leave until the session is starting and he’s left to shift awkwardly in his seat instead.

He doesn’t look at her throughout the entire hour and she’s grateful she’s not expected to speak beyond introducing herself and clumsily explaining why she was there. Chimney knows exactly why she’s there, she supposes, because her brother had told her once that he tells the 118 everything and she can’t imagine her history was excluded from that. She’d arrived in LA barely one month before and this was the first time she had ventured outside of her brother’s apartment aside from private therapy sessions, at the recommendation of the therapist. Group therapy would be beneficial, he had said. It would be good for her to know that there were a group of people who understood on a level that other people may not be able to, how she felt sometimes or how her thoughts consumed her all too much… at least, that’s what he told her.

Maddie had her doubts and they were increasing by the second, especially as she hears Chimney stumbling over his words as he talks about attending the scene of a car accident at work that day and how it had brought some of that residual trauma from his own accident right back to the forefront of his mind. But he had remained professional in the moment, even afterwards, he had kept it bubbling up inside of him but she could see it practically seeping from him as his bottom lip trembles and he seems to be holding back the tears that he clearly _needs_ to let out. She hopes he isn’t holding back because she’s there. She knows the rules… what is said in therapy, stays in therapy. She’s not going to blab to her brother about what he says or what he does within the four walls of the church hall they’re in.

It’s not how she imagined meeting any of her brother’s friends (well… his family), and she doubts it’s something they’ll ever talk about but she hates how embarrassed she is. As though she’s invaded his space (unwittingly) and his privacy and she knows she needs to find another therapy group for people who have been diagnosed with PTSD. It’s LA, there must be loads, even if she has to drive further away from her apartment to get there.

She’s just glad when it’s over and all she can do is practically run out of there, trying not to think about how she hadn’t actually openly discussed that she was there because the man who had abused her for years was dead. No, she internally corrects herself, not just dead but killed by her because she’d had no other choice. The nightmares and the panic attacks had been almost expected because of course she was traumatised after killing a man she had once loved, a man she had spent sixteen years of her life with. The diagnosis had taken her by surprise although her brother had looked at her as though it was obvious when she had told him.

The gentle breeze in the cool LA night is enough to make her pause at her car, lifting her head up a little as she just breathes it in. Her cheeks had felt flush from the sheer embarrassment of being in the room (something she knows is illogical and stupid because they were all there for the same reason but she still didn’t feel deserving or as though she belonged, as though somehow her trauma was… lesser than theirs somehow) so the breeze sends her leaning against the cool metal of her car as her eyes close and she tries to tell herself it’s going to be okay.

With no idea how much time has passed, she opens her eyes and looks around at the relative silence of the parking lot, wondering how lost she had been in her own thoughts to have not heard everyone pulling away. Everyone apart from the person in the car next to hers, the person she immediately recognises to be Chimney beneath the bright light of the street lamp above them. A part of her tells her to get in her car and drive away, she’s already increased his vulnerability that night without intending to and she doesn’t want to make him feel any worse than he probably already does. But then she can see how he’s leaning his head against the steering wheel and she’s certain she can see his body shaking with sobs.

It’s the fact that he is her brother’s friend that pulls her forward, it’s not often she’d approach a stranger in a dark parking lot but she finds herself moving to the drivers side and gently knocking on the window anyway. He jumps, of course he does and she jumps at his sudden movement even though she had been expecting it and she wishes her heart rate would calm down a little when he slowly rolls down the window and she forces a small smile on her face. “I’m sorry, I uh—I know you know who I am and I just wanted to let you know that anything you said in there will stay in that room, I would never—I wouldn’t even consider for a second telling my brother that I even saw you here. I just… I wanted you to know that.” She bites down on her lip as she looks at the way he hastily wipes his tears, shaking his head as he does.

“Thank you, I didn’t think you would, this isn’t you, it’s just… been a rough, long day.” His words are breathy, as though he’s still holding back how he feels and she doesn’t blame him because she is nothing to him other than his friends and his colleagues big sister. It’s not her place to call him out on it, so she just nods her head and looks down at the way his hands are gripping at the steering wheel, noticing the slight tremble in them and she thinks she knows what the issue is but again, she’s terrified of over-stepping.

He takes a breath and then he’s smiling at her as though nothing happened but she knows that look in his eyes, she’s forced that very same smile on her face countless times. “I’m okay, really, just gonna drive home and start again tomorrow.” Those words, she’s said them before too and sometimes, she really did believe them but she can see how he looks as though he really doesn’t want to drive right then and she can’t blame him after what he had just discussed in there.

“You don’t know me and you can absolutely say no if you want to but I think I saw a diner around the corner on the way here, do you maybe want to come grab a cup of coffee with me?” It’s half an hour at the most but it might just be enough to alleviate whatever thoughts are running through his head right then, the thoughts that are stopping him from turning the key and driving home as he so clearly wants to. It’s just half an hour but it also means she doesn’t have to face her little brother for a while longer and try and push past the answers he so desperately wants from her.

Relief is all she feels when the man nods his head, and she notes he looks exactly how she feels right then when he lets go of the steering wheel and she steps back so he can open the door. “I’m Chimney, by the way. I know you know that but… formal introduction.” The second he steps out of the door, he’s holding out a hand for her to shake and she takes it with a soft smile.

“Maddie Buckley.” He already knew that but it feels nice to say ‘Buckley’ out loud again instead of Kendall as she had been so used to saying, both of them smiling at each other for a second before he drops her hand and gestures with his head in the direction of the diner she had mentioned.

“This place actually does really good pie, too.”


End file.
